


Emmi

by AvaIves



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-18 17:16:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9395318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaIves/pseuds/AvaIves
Summary: Emmi Hale is a young girl with telekinetic powers and she's not entirely human. This is her story growing up as an agent of SHIELD and an Avenger.





	1. Chapter 1

Prologue  
Christmas Eve 2006  
The men on watch that night had been trained for a lot of things. Alien invasion, homeland attacks, but never had they read anything that told them what to do in the event that a flash of blue light would appear just in front of the gate. The light faded as quickly as it had come, leaving in it’s wake a dark haired woman carrying a child wrapped in a pink blanket. For a moment the two men simply gawked, neither believing their eyes as they looked at each other to confirm that they were in fact seeing two people who had just appeared out of thin air. Then they began to move for their walkies.  
“Control we’ve got a situation, there’s a woman outside the gates-” But he couldn’t finish the report. A second later there was a sizzling noise and then sparks filled with watch tower. The gate had just swung open. There was no way to open it unless one of them hit the button. However, the gate seemed to be resisting because the sparks came as a clear sign that it should have been shut ,but was forced open. But this woman was holding nothing but the blanket and the child inside it. She walked through the sparking, sizzling gate with no fear and began to move into the compound.  
“Control we’ve got an intruder at the north gate, she’s making her way toward the main building, over-!” More sparks flew in the watch tower and the men covered their faces to shield their eyes. After they’d finished coughing, they looked up just in time to see the woman walk straight into the front doors. The guards were on the ground a few dozen feet from where they’d been a second ago. Control had already responded. They were sending in soldiers with guns to appear the intruder. But they didn’t get a chance to shoot. The woman twitched her fingertips and they were all flying through the air and falling onto the ground like rain.  
Once inside, the woman began to stagger. She knew her strength was leaving her, there wasn’t much time. There was an endless line of men with guns approaching her now shouting things.  
“I need to see Nick Fury,” she told them. Her knees were going to buckle soon. She just need another minute, please just another minute.  
“Ma’m put the child down and put your hands up!” Someone shouted at her. Red dots had appeared all over her body but she knew they wouldn’t shoot. Not while she was holding her daughter.  
“I need to see Nick Fury,” she repeated, but the men weren’t listening. They were just shouting things and waving their guns like animals. She didn’t have time for this, she didn’t have time at all. She sent them all flying backwards into each other like dominos. But of course there was more, even more agitated than the last batch. And this time they had a man with a bow pointed at her too.  
“Nick Fury,” she repeated to this new round. “I-” She staggered, her body shutting down piece by piece until there would be nothing left. The girl in her arms was getting heavier every second but she refused to let go. “I need to see-”  
“So see him.” The others parted to let their boss through. Nick Fury was an imposing presence with a patch that covered one eye and a strong stance when faced with an intruder. But she hadn’t hurt any of his people, only moved them. He/d noticed that. “Who are you? What have you come here for?”  
“Mommy?” asked the bundle in her arms. The girl had been asleep before all the men started shouting. After that she’d just gone along for the ride with the trust that only a child could give while wrapped in their mother's arms.  
“Put your guns down,” Fury ordered his people. They lowered them, but only to waist length. “Tell us who you are,” he ordered the woman who was now comforting her child to get her to stay quiet. “You’re not looking so good, why don’t you have one of us hold onto her?” The woman met his eyes and Fury would remember the look on her face for years to come. It was more than desperation, it was a plea. He’d known at that moment that this woman was dying.  
“You have to protect her,” she’d begged, not crying, she never once cried. “Her name is Emmi. She’s my daughter. She has gifts, she has to learn to use them.” She looked at the child in her arms and in one look, said goodbye to the only thing she cared about. “She needs SHIELD to protect her.”  
“You’re going to have to give me a little more information than that,” Fury said testily. He was watching this woman’s every move. He’d seen what she could do to twenty men while barely moving her fingers.  
“I don’t have time,” the woman told him. “I’m dying.”  
“Yes, I can see that. If you’ll follow me-”  
“You can’t fix me!” the woman snapped. The outburst seemed to drain the last of her strength and she started to sink to her knees. “I- your medicine is too small…” The man with the arrow moved in without being told to and took the girl from her mother’s arms effortlessly. She let him take her.  
“Mommy!” The girl cried in panic this time, aware that some stranger was now holding her. “Mommy! Where are you taking my Mommy?”  
“It’s alright, you’ll be alright now,” her mother told her from the floor. People had rushed over to help her up and were now leading her in the opposite direction of her daughter. “Don’t use your powers!” She shouted behind her. “You’ll be safe here. I love you.” The girl just stared after her mother until she was gone. Fury nodded at Clint Barton who had the girl tucked under one of his arms and then followed after the woman. They brought her to the medical facilities and hooked her up to every machine they could. They gave her oxygen and tried to steady her heartbeat, but even Fury could tell it wasn’t working.  
“Sir, she’s not responding,” the doctor explained. “I’ve never seen anything like it- the cells in her blood- they’re not human.” Fury didn’t react. He’d seen too much to be shocked at this. The woman looked at him through the swarm of doctors around her and he went to her side.  
“You’re dying,” he repeated her words. “We can’t help you.”  
“No,” she said weakly.  
“Then I suggest you tell me what you feel I should know before that happens.” She looked into his eyes like he was the last bit of hope that she had.  
“I come from a place called Asgard. It’s another planet. We are like you, but more. My daughter’s father is human, so she’s still one of you.” The woman coughed and blood came out of her mouth. She seemed to be in a great deal of pain, but counined as if driven by some unstoppable force. “She can move things with her mind. She’s only eight, she can’t control it. She’ll age like a mortal, I made sure. But you can’t let her out, she’ll hurt people.” Fury listened closely to this. A mother wouldn’t say something like that about their child unless it was true. And he could see from the medical tests currently being done on this woman that she was far from human.  
“My father is the king of Asgard, where I come from. He considers Emmi to be an abomination, a hybrid. He killed me.” She was speaking like she was already dead, but Fury was sure she would be in a moment. “He won’t be able to find her now, but if one day he does, you have to protect her.”  
“We will,” Fury promised her, taking the woman’s hand. “We’ll keep her daughter safe. Who’s her father, who can we take her to?”  
“He’s not important, she has no one else, she has to stay with you,” the woman said sharply. “Promise me. Promise me you’ll raise her. Promise me you’ll keep her safe and make her strong.”  
“I promise.” And Nick Fury didn’t promise things often. But after he did, the woman shut her eyes and didn’t open them again. A second later from a good distance away, he heard a child scream. And then there was a sound like a hurricane was wrapping apart the SHIELD compound. He ran toward the source of the noise, shouting over his shoulder for no one to shoot. When he got back to the hall where he’d left Clint with the girl, he saw nothing but her. Guards were lying on their backs on the ground, papers, office desks and anything that had been in a radius of forty feet of her had been blasted back, leaving a circle of nothing and her standing in the middle of it.  
She looked at him with huge blue eyes filled with tears, still clutching the pink blanket she’d been wrapped in. She was wearing a flannel purple shirt and white pajama pants with different colored fish on them. Eight, her mother had said. She looked to be about that age with her mother’s ink dark hair. She looked at Nick not as an intruder, but with fear at the guns and all the men looking at her.  
“Put those down,” Nick ordered his guards. “Everyone put their weapons on the ground.” They listened, all looking in mute shock at the tiny girl who had just caused so much damage. Even the windows had shattered when she screamed. Clint pulled himself off the ground with the other men she’d blasted back, None of them appeared hurt more than a few bumps on their heads. She hadn’t meant to hurt them, Fury concluded. And neither had the mother. She could have- he didn’t even know her name- she could have killed his men with all that power. But she hadn’t even given them broken bones. This girl wasn’t a threat. She was just scared.  
“It’s alright,” he told her, holding out his hands. He didn’t consider himself to be good with kids but there wasn’t a choice here. “No one is going to hurt you, you’re safe here.” She stared back at him, tears falling down her cheeks and her body shaking. He nodded at Clint to go up behind the girl while he kept her distracted.  
“Your name is Emmi, isn’t it? My name is Nick. And that’s Clint.” The archer boldly reached out and took the girl’s hand. Everyone froze, but nothing happened. She turned toward him and stared at him in the same terrified shock way she’d stared at Fury.  
“We just want to ask you a few questions,” Nick explained. “Before you get too tired and forgot. You can all go,” he added at the crowd. “The girl is not a threat to us. Clint, bring her. And Tomson, call agent Hill. Tell her to meet us in my office.” Clint nodded shortly. Fury’s voice was urgent, but he knew he needed to move slow. He knelt on the ground so he was at the same level as the girl.  
“Hi. I know you’re really scared right now, but it’s important for us to find out some more about you, alright?” She didn’t answer, but seemed to understand. “You’re going to stay with me the whole time, how’s that sound?” The girl held out her arms for him to pick her up. That was the sign he’d won. He carried her in the blanket she was clinging to into Fury’s personal chambers. Agent Maria Hill was already waiting there for them armed with her computer. Fury was standing against his desk with his arms crossed. Two agents stood outside the door, but besides that they were alone with Emmi. Clint sat Fury’s couch with her in his lap. She’d buried herself in the blanket, obviously feeling safe in it. Clint looked up at Fury in a sign of get this over with. He didn’t want to put her through this, but he understood how necessary itw as. They were up against time to find out who she was and what she could do.  
“Your name’s Emmi,” Fury repeated. “But can you tell me your last name?” Hill was staring at the girl in confusion. She’d obviously been called out of bed and had no idea what was going on beside what Fury had told her hurriedly in about ten seconds.  
“Hale,” the girl said quietly from under the blanket and Clint’s arm.  
“Emmi Hale,” Fury repeated and Hill put into her computer and started searching. “And where did you live, Emmi? Do you know your address?”  
“5 Lincoln Road.” Her voice was soft and high pitched, but confident. Clint was amazed she wasn’t in enough shock to not be able to speak at all.  
“5 Lincoln Road. Is that I'm DC?”  
“New York.”  
“That’s about six hours from us, sir.” Maria told him. “It says the house was owned by a woman named Elizabeth Hale.” She turned the computer to show a picture of the woman who’d just died on their table. Under it was a school photograph from a third grade class.  
“Find the school an the teacher and contract her,” Fury told Hill. “Ask her for any information she has on the family.” Hill nodded shortly.  
“When’s your birthday, Emmi?” Fury asked. He was staring at it on the screen, but this would test a theory.  
“April thirteenth.” She told the truth.  
“1998?” She hadn’t paused in her answers before that moment. They’d been quick and concise. But now she hesitated. Her eyes were staring straight ahead and she didn’t blink. Only Clint, who had just become a father himself, could tell she was simply confused.  
“I’m eight and a half.” He let out a loud breath, eying Fury with distaste. She was just a kid, they should let her sleep.  
“That’s good, Emmi,” Fury said, ignoring his agents stern stares. “That’s very good.” He nodded at Clint who stood up and picked the girl up in his arms again. She wasn’t heavy, but he was surprised a dying woman had been able to carry her that long. She’d barely been able to stand. “Why don’t you give her to Maria for the night?” Fury suggested, but Clint shook his head.  
“No, I’ll stay.” Fury eyed him suspiciously, figuring he’d want to go home to his wife and infant son, but Clint didn’t blink.  
“Alright. Bring her back to me the morning, until then make sure sleeps and eats. Bonding with her wouldn’t hurt either.” He brushed the girl’s hair. She’d already shut her eyes against Clint’s shoulder, exhausted. “After all, it seems like she’s ours now.”


	2. Black Widow Part 1

Black Widow

Nick Fury POV

April 13, 2008

He hadn't moved in hours. He was aware of the tingling sensation in his left leg where it had gone numb under the the table, but physical discomfort was nothing. He had come to the last few pages of the diary his agents had found among the belongs of the late Elizabeth Hale. Elizabeth hadn't been her real name, of course. The team that had been assigned to her case over the past two years had found more than a dozen aliases and temporary residences for the anomaly that was Miss Hale during the ten years she had existed on earth. That was as far back as any records went of her. Beyond that, she simply disappeared. The child had come into play in April 1998. They had found her father of course, a doctor of little enough significance that Fury had thought it better to let him live in ignorance. There was nothing a biological father could do for her that SHIELD couldn't.

The diary that had held the director captive in his office into the wee hours of the morning had been found hidden under a floorboard in the house 'Elizabeth Hale' had lived in before she died. They had brought it to him immediately. It was almost as thick as a novel and consisted mostly of very well drawn pictures and paintings that made no sense to Fury. They seemed to be of a world Fury had never seen. Asgard, Elizabeth had called it in the fifteen minutes he had known her. But the pictures that interested him were those of Emmi.

For the past two years, he and his agents had been taking care of the girl. She was as gifted as any of the people who worked at compound. However, her ability to move things with her mind was the only thing that hinted she was not in fact a regular ten year old girl. Though Fury was itching to put her into the field and set her to work on a number of operations, he knew he'd have to wait. She was a child first and the child needed to grow. She had adjusted surprisingly well to new life. Their line of work was often difficult and traumatizing, but Emmi Hale was a ray of sunshine in a dangerous profession. Fury had come to care for her as had many of the other agents. She was a thing to be protected until she was old enough to do it for herself. And these pictures worried him.

They didn't make a lot of sense. There was no coloration between them, they seemed to be random events and showed Emmi getting steadily older the more pages he flipped. Every once in a whole, there would be a written entry in old style writing. But most of the written entries were in a language he couldn't understand. He hadn't moved yet to call someone to research it. He knew it wasn't from earth. Emmi was the first alien he had ever met and according to her mother, she was only half that. He had told the child none of this. Only a handful of people knew Emmi was anything other than a human with extraordinary abilities. There was no need to tell her and no need to further the chance of her finding out. But this journal frightened him. Not all of the drawings were nice, not the normal kind of thing a mother would want for her child.

The first entry- none of them had dates- was of Emmi looking about the way she did now. Long, curly black hair that dropped half way down her back she refuse to have cut. Dark blue eyes that saw through white lies that adults told to children. And in the pictures standing next to her was a red haired woman he did not know. She didn't look particularly nice and she was holding a gun out in front of her. But the Emmi in the picture didn't seem scared. In fact, she was smiling up at her in a trusting way that looked incredibly accurate to the girl he'd come to know. There was no way Elizabeth Hale could have simply predicated how he daughter would look two years after her death. She had changed so much from the night she'd been brought in. These were more than drawings. They could be the future.

A soft knock on his office door brought Fury out of his trance. Before he could say enter, it was opening and a small figure in pink pajamas walked sheepishly up to his desk.

"Emmi, what are you doing out of bed?" He looked at the grandfather clock in the corner. "It's two in the morning."

"I know," the girl explained in her high soprano voice, biting her bottom lip nervously. "I couldn't sleep. I'm too excited."

"Why are you excited?" Fury pretended to think, even though he knew perfectly well what had encouraged her to leave her bed at this hour. A smile broke over Emmi's face at the joke and she realex with the knowledge that she may not be in trouble.

"Because I'm ten! That's double digits, that's a very important birthday, don't you think, uncle Nick?" He nodded seriously, pushing the dairy under his arm and safely out of her view.

"It is a very important birthday which means that the very important birthday girl should be in bed for at least four more hours." He stood up, his aging joints groaning as he did so. Emmi cocked her head to the side, her bed ruffled curls framing her inquisitive face in an angelic fashion that seemed almost unnaturally perfect. Fury had come to see that head tilt as a warning side that the girl had noticed something she shouldn't.

"What's wrong, uncle Nick? You're worried."

"It's just work," he told her, guiding her toward the door and into the hall to take her back to her own room.

"What were ryou reading before? Is that what made you worried?" Emmi had an uncanny ability of playing guessing games. And she was almost always right. Fury had heard rumors that several of the agents claimed she'd read their minds. But he knew better. She could move things with her mind, but she wasn't a telepath. She was simply highly observant and had no filter to keep her thoughts to herself.

"What's worrying me right now is you being too tired to enjoy your birthday," he told her. And like a child should, her short attention span allowed her to forget about it.

"It's just that I had a strange dream," she explained. They had reached her room, the only room in the entire compound with purple wallpaper. Maria Hill had created it, seeing as Emmi couldn't live outside until her gifts were something she could control. They had made a home for her in the workplace.

"What was the dream about?" Fury asked. Emmi often had strange dreams about people she'd never met and places she'd never been. Unusual for a child. She climbed back into bed as she explained eagerly.

"Well, it was actually more scary than strange. I was in this big field all on my own and there were these people chasing me. But I didn't know why. And then this woman with red hair and a gun, she came and saved me and we ran away." For a moment, Fury simply stared at her. He thought prepares he'd looked at the dairy too long, that he was so exhausted he had started to hear things. She'd just described the image he'd been looking at when she walked into his office.

"Did the woman say anything?" he asked, conveying none of his surprise on his face. Emmi shook her head.

"No. I just woke up. She made me feel safe though. She was nice." Emmi rolled over, closing her eyes. Fury sat on the end of her bed for a moment until her breathing fell into the steady rhythm of sleep. He got up, careful not to jostle the bed and turned off the light. Once he reached the hallway, he tapped the earpiece in his ear.

"Coulson? This is going to sound like a very strange request but I want you to tell all the teams we've got out there to keep their eyes open for a woman with red hair and a gun. Yes, you heard me correctly. And call agent Barton, ask him where the hell he is. Emmi's not going to be happy if he's not back here for her birthday."

EMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEM

Clint POV

The jeep kept getting stuck in the mud. He'd found one with the biggest tires he could, but it was pointless. The highway from hell, the locals called it. And it certainly was. For two days Clint Barton and the woman he was supposed to kill but didn't had been traveling the long road from Moscow to Yakoutsk where a plane would be waiting to take them back to DC. He never thought he'd miss sitting in urban traffic. Or heat. It hadn't been too bad until they reached the last six hundred miles of the road. Until then, he thought he would be able to make it back in time. But the endless line of cars in front of him- also stuck in the mud- told a different story.

"You seem a little tense, bird man." The woman he was supposed to kill, currently going by the name of Natasha Romanoff, didn't speak much. That was just fine with Clint because he didn't feel like talking. He hated waiting, he hated sitting still. This highway was his worst nightmare. "Something on your mind?"

"Just anxious to get home," he told her simply. The car in front of him moved- or rather slid, two feet forward. He considered that a victory. Natasha smiled and he batted her eyes in a way that had probably seduced men of much sounder minds than him. But given that he'd just spared her life, romance would be taking it a little too far. Clint didn't like drama. And he was married with a kid and another on the way as he'd reminded her yesterday. She'd left him alone after that. Mostly.

"Anxious for what? Don't you like my country?" Her accent was flawless, but Clint had read her file. She was born and raised in Russia, trained to be a spy. He'd been sent by Fury to find and eliminate her before she became too much of a threat. It wasn't a job he looked forward to. And evidently, it wasn't' a job he could handle because he hadn't killed her and was bringing her home with him instead.

"Yeah, it's fantastic," he said sarcastically. The man in the truck behind him had gotten out to shovel out his tires and was swearing loudly in Russian. "But I made a promise to be back for a little girl's birthday, so I'd like to cut the holiday short, you know what I mean?"

"I thought you had a son."

"I do. Different little girl. It's a long story. Hey, we're moving." And they were in fact moving. Very, very slowly, but moving. Natasha looked in the mirror above them, running her hands through her new hair.

"I don't know if I like it."

"You look fine. New look, new you, right?" She leaned back, a distant look in her eyes for a moment before she concealed it with a grin.

"Then get ready for the new me to be very feisty. That's what they say about red haired woman, isn't?"

Emmi POV

They'd been in there for hours. Hours and hours. Clint had been very late. He'd promised he'd be back in plenty of time to see her turn double digits, but he had in fact been three days late. She hadn't gotten to see him yet, he'd been in Fury's office all day, but Maria had assured her it hadn't been on purpose. Emmi wasn't mad at him, she just wanted to see him. It was boring when he wasn't here and she had to work on her school things and make stupid shapes out of water until her head hurt. She looked at the bowl in front of her. Most of the water was now lying spilled on the table and she had to keep refilling it from the sink. When she'd asked Coulsonwhy she couldn't make the shapes from the water coming out of the sink to begin with, he'd told her it would make an even bigger mess. But he'd gone into Fury's office too and left her alone. And the bowl was boring.

Emmi turned on the tap, stepped back and concentrated. Concentrating meant picturing the shape she wanted in her mind and squinting her eyes. It always worked better when she squinted. The water started to shake and then it broke away from the facet and formed a floating blob just above it. Then it started to take shape, warping into what almost resembled a dog. But she couldn't hold it for very long. It fell like all the others had onto the floor and did indeed make a mess. Emmi waved her hand at the sink and the facet knob turned itself to off. Then she looked at the puddle on the floor. The water droplets rose into the air and then flung themselves back into the sink. It wasn't perfect, but not that big of a mess. Once she was done, someone started clapping behind her.

"Clint!" She ran to him and he lifted her off the ground and spun her around even though she was much too old and too big for him to do that. "You're late. My birthday was yesterday, you missed it."

"I know, I'm sorry." He leaned over so they were the same height. Emmi made a mad face at him even though she didn't feel mad. She was just glad he was here. "I got stuck in the mud."  
"In the mud?" She forgot to pretend she was mad, wanting to hear the story.

"Yep. A lot of it. A whole road made of mud for miles and miles. And lots of other cars that were stuck too. That's why I was late."

"Oh." She was still making her best pouty face, but that seemed reasonable. "Did you bring me my present?" Clint pretended to think and then stroked a pretend goatee on his chin which made her laugh. Then he reached into his jacket pocket and took out a beautiful stuffed dog. A yellow lab, her favorite. She snatched it from his arms, inspecting it to make sure it was worthy.

"I know you're getting a little old for toys, but seeing as he can't have a real dog-"

"He's perfect," she told him. "He looks just like Toby." Toby was the dog that she used to have when she lived with her mom. She'd had to leave him behind like everything else. They couldn't have dogs in the compound. Now Toby lived with a little boy on a farm where he had lots of room to run around. Fury had told her so.

"Why did you have to talk to uncle Nick so long?" Emmi asked, sitting on the edge of the table- which she wasn't supposed to do- and cradling her toy to her chest. "I was waiting hours."

"I had to introduce him to someone I found in Russia," Clint explained. He was lying. Grown ups lied all the time about things kids weren't supposed to know about. They did it so often, that Emmi didn't remind them they were doing it anymore. She just kept the secret to herself. "She's going to stay with us."

"What's her name?" Emmi asked, playing with the stuffed dogs ears. She was going to have to pick him out a name too. It couldn't be Toby, that was unoriginal.

"Her name's Natasha. Do you want to go meet her?"

"What should I name him?" She held the dog up for Clint to see.

"I'll help you pick a name later. First, I want you to meet my friend." Emmi jumped off the table, still more interested in the dog than meeting another person. New people came to stay at the compound all the time. Sometimes they stayed for a long time, sometimes they left. She had learned that only the people she knew would stay could be her friends. Otherwise she'd miss people who didn't. But she followed Clint into Nick's office anyway, curious to meet the person that had made him miss her birthday.

There had been lots of people who went in for the meeting, but now it was only uncle Nick and the new woman left. When she turned around, Emmi saw that it was the same woman from her dream, the one who saved her from the people that had been chasing them. It wasn't that surprising, sometimes when she had a dream the people in it just turned up. She smiled politely as she decided whether the woman was a friend or not. She seemed lost. And maybe scared too. But not mean.

"Emmi, this is Natasha Romanoff," Nick explained and the tone in his voice told her that this woman was important. "Clint met her in Russia and she'll be staying with us for a while."

"I know," Emmi told him. "She was in my dream." The frown on Nick's face confused her. She'd told him about the dream. Didn't he figure out that the red haired woman in his office was the same one from the dream? It wasn't that hard. Natasha didn't say anything. Her face didn't look very nice, but Emmi didn't think it was on purpose. Sometimes people seemed mean when they were really just scared.

"Well, why don't you give her a tour?" Nick suggested. Natasha turned to look at him in a face Emmi often made when she was told to do school work. "It will help you bond," Nick explained, smiling back at her.

"Okay," Emmi agreed, tucking her dog under her arm. "I can show you my room first."

Natasha POV

Natasha followed the weird kid out of the office and into the hall that reminded her too much of a hospital. When she'd agreed to come to America, being put in charge of a ten year old was not what she had in mind. She'd wanted to live and faced with execution or working for someone who'd pay her, she'd chosen the later. But after Clint had introduced her to her new boss, he'd proceeded to tell her that her first assignment would be to look after the organization's youngest member. The job didn't fit her skills at all. She was an assassin, she should be running missions. She didn't know anything about kids and the fact that this one was a freak of nature was not going to help that.

"Did you help Clint pick out my dog?" She asked casually, holding up the stuffed animal that had sat in the backseat of their jeep for two days.

"No," she said more sharply than most people would when addressing a child. This one didn't seem fazed. She stopped outside of a door and pointed to the sign that read Emmi's Palace, knock three times if friend.

"That's my room. It's not very fun though, let's go outside." Natasha followed her, not seeming to have a choice. The compound was huge, but Emmi had no problem finding her way out of it. Natasha's spirits lifted slightly when she saw a familiar sight. There were people training on the lawn with punching bags and sparring with each other.

"I'm not allowed down there," Emmi explained. "Are you really from Russia?"

"Yes."

"So why do you speak English?"

"I speak English and Russian."

"What's it sound like?"

"Do you always ask this many questions?" Emmi smiled and stopped talking. But only for a solid minute while they walked around the training lawn.

"Do you have any kids?"

"No."

"Do you have anybody?" Natasha looked sideways at her and found Emmi looking right back at her with a very serious expression that made her look a lot older. This question didn't' seem quite so innocent and Natasha fumbled answering.

"Not- not anymore."

"Oh. So that's why you're so lonely." Natasha blinked at her and before she could answer, Emmi was taking her hand. "Don't worry. I didn't have anybody either when I came here. My mom was sick and she died. I was lonely too." Her face brightened. "But not anymore. You'll like it here, it can get boring, but maybe not for you since you can do adult stuff."

"I'm not going to be doing adult stuff," Natasha told her, yanking her hand back. "Fury says I'm going to be watching you." Emmi frowned and wrinkled her nose.

"That's weird. Normally Clint watches me." Then her eyes lit up. "Oh! It's because of the dream I had about you."

"And what exactly was I doing in this dream you had about me?" Natasha asked her. She'd been told the kid could move things with her mind, not predict the future.

"You were saving me," Emmi explained very seriously. "With a gun. Do you know how to shoot a gun? Apparently they're dangerous, but I think that would be really cool." Natasha had the distinct impression from years of studying human behavior that this kid was trying to relate to her. She didn't care about guns, she was just trying to make friends.

"So you can move things with your mind, right?" Natasha asked her. Emmi nodded. "So can you move like- that rock?" She pointed to a small pebble on the path.

"I'm not supposed to do it without one of my teachers," Emmi explained.

"Well I'm the one who's going to be watching you, so I guess that makes me a teacher. Show me, come on." With no more hesitation, Emmi extended her hand toward the pebble. Natasha hadn't quite believed what Fury had told her about a the kid. But when she saw the rock fly into her hand, all her doubts disappeared.

"Little things are easy," Emmi explained, trying to comfort the shock on her face. "Bigger things take longer. But uncle Nick says I'll learn."

"What's the biggest thing you can move?" Natasha said quickly. She wanted to see the kid do it again, she needed to know what she was dealing with. Emmi looked around and then pointed to a table covered in training gear on the lawn.

"It's kind of far away though, so maybe not." But then she saw the look on Natasha's face and decided to try. She raised her hand again and sure enough, the table shook and then rose a foot off the ground. People standing in the nearby area turned to look, most of them shocked, but then they saw that it was Emmi doing it and went back to their tasks. None of them seemed fazed beyond that.

"Emmi!" A man's voice shouted from across the field and Natasha could see this one was more important than the rest. He was dressed in a neat suit and seemed to be avoiding stepping on the grass as to not sole his expensive shoes. She thought she'd met all the important people in Fury's office. And this one didn't seem too happy. She had a strange urge to step in front of the kid she was supposed to be watching. Emmi didn't seem bothered by the harshness of the stranger though and Natasha felt herself relax.

"What are you doing? You know the rules," the man told her sternly. Most kids would have shied away or at least looked sorry. Emmi acted like she hadn't heard him, playing silently with her dog's ear. The man moved on and smiled pleasantly at Natasha.

"You must be miss Romanoff. I apologize for missing your integration, I was held up." The man held out his hand. "I'm Arch Winter." She didn't like him. She'd been trained to assess people in the first few seconds she met them. He was one of the fake ones, the people that put on a different face for whoever they were talking to or needed to be in that moment. She'd learned to be weary of people like that. They were too changeable. But she shook his hand anyway.

"I'm sorry about that, I'm afraid I don't know all the rules yet," she said, plastering a fake smile on her face too. Emmi was looking at her feet, suddenly quiet. So she didn't like Winter either. Interesting.

"Not a problem. I don't understand why Fury assigned you to the child, you hardly seem quantified." Natasha forced herself to continue smiling even though it clearly wasn't a compliment. "Come along, Emmi. We're going inside."

"I'm giving her a tour," Emmi said boldly. Clearly the kid had no respect for authority when she didn't agree with it.

"I said come along, Emmi," Winter said in a voice even Natasha didn't think was very suited for a child. Emmi listened this time but with a nasty scowl on her face.

"I guess you can help me name him later," she said over her shoulder.

"Name who?" Natasha asked, watching the girl get farther away from her, tiny in comparison to the man that was now grabbing for her hand to pull her after him.

"The dog!" She waved the yellow stuffy in the air and then she was gone, leaving Natasha very alone in her new home.

Two Weeks Later

Emmi POV

The sound of her door opening woke her. In the soft orange glow of her star night light, she saw that it was Natasha who'd come in. She sat up, sensing something was wrong because it was too dark to be morning and why would Natasha be here if Nick hadn't told her to be?

"Come on kid, get up," she said in a voice that instantly made Emmi scared. Something was definitely wrong.

"Why? What's happening?" Natasha was pacing around her room and opening the door to her closet looking for something.

"Do you have a bag?" Emmi stared at her, wondering if she was still dreaming and would wake up in a moment to an empty and calm room. "A backpack, anything? Kid, help me out!" Emmi swung her legs over the side of the bed, holding Gabe- the name Natasha had picked out for her dog- close to her chest. She went to the closet and pulled out her ladybug backpack that Natasha had been looking right at and probably should have seen with all her training and stuff.

"Pack some clothes and whatever else you want, just hurry up. We're leaving."

"Where are we going?" Emmi asked, but she started putting clothes in the bag anyway because it seemed important.

"Away from here." Natasha helped her put more clothes in her bag and put it on.

"Wait, I don't have shoes!" She complained. Her heart was beating very fast, but she was sure she'd see Nick soon and he'd tell her why they had to leave in the middle of the night. There was a loud noise in the hallway that sounded like running footsteps. That must be him. But Natasha didn't seem to think so because she started moving very fast and threw her bed slippers at her so hard they hit her in the face.

"Put those on and climb out your window."

"What?"

"Kid you gotta listen to me- just do it. Climb out the window and wait on the ledge." Emmi felt a prickling sensation behind her eyes when she realized she was serious. Her window was on the second floor, it was very high. But the noises in the hallway now seemed scary and threatening, so she put on her slippers and her backpack, tucked Gabe under her arm and opened the window. After a few seconds of scrambling, she was able to climb out onto the roof. It wasn't too cold, but it was definitely high. She was too scared to move anymore, the ground was so far away.

There was a loud crash in the room behind her and Emmi turned around to see lots of dark shapes illuminated only by the orange glow of the nightlight. The shapes were battling each other, moving very fast and breaking things. She couldn't see which one was Natasha. It looked like they were all dancing. Then one of them was climbing out the window and Emmi screamed, too scared to go any farther. But it was Natasha, her hair all tangled in her face. Emmi wasn't exactly sure how they got down, only that Natasha mostly carried her until her feet were on the wet grass, soaking through her slippers instantly.

"Run and don't stop," Natasha ordered her. Emmi only moved once Natasha was holding her hand. They ran to a car and Emmi got in the back. It made a loud screeching noise as it pulled away from the compound. Emmi started breathing hard. There was no Nick, no Clint, nobody she knew to tell her what was happening.

"Who where those people? Where are we going? Where's uncle Nick?" Emmi demanded. Natasha didn't answer her at all. She was holding the steering wheel so tight her hands were turning white. There was a cut on her lip that was bleeding. Those people hurt her.

"I want uncle Nick," Emmi told her. "Take me back! I want uncle Nick!"

"Stop screaming!" Natasha yelled back at her. "He told me to take you. Bad people are chasing us, and I'm taking you away from them, have you got that?" Bad people like in the dream. The dream where Natasha saved her. Emmi relaxed a little bit, but not a lot. Just enough to stop screaming. A bright light caused her to look behind her. There was another car and it's lights were shining right on them.

"Did they follow us?" Emmi asked, her heart pounding even harder. Their car swerved hard down another road and Emmi realized she hadn't put her seat belt on because she hit her head hard on the side door. The car kept following them and it was getting closer. Natasha swerved again and this time, Emmi could see they were on the side of a cliff. She tried to put her seat belt on, but her hands were shaking too much to find the button.

"They're gonna hit us!" She called in alarm because the car was still getting closer. She could see into it, she could see the people driving. And she recognized them. It was David and Tommy, they both worked at the compound. She didn't know them well, but they'd been around a while. They worked for Winter. Winter was like Nick's second in command, so he had his own people to work for him.

"Nat, it's okay, I know them!" Emmi said happily, relief washing over her. "They're not bad guys." Emmi saw Natasha's eyes in the mirror when she looked back at her and they were dark and scary. This time when she swerved, she purposely hit the other car. Emmi had finally gotten her seatbelt on so it didn't hurt that much,but it still felt like going around a sharp curve on a roller coaster. She hit them again and then David and Tommy's car was going over the side of the cliff and disappearing.

"You killed them!" Emmi screamed. "Why did you kill them?!"  
"They're most likely not dead," Natasha told her. "It's more of a curtsy then they would have given us."

"But they're not bad guys, they're on our side!" Emmi tried to explain.

"No, kid. They're not. You know Winter, the rude one that you said didn't let you do anything fun? Well, you were right not to like him because your uncle Nick seems to think he wants to kidnap you and use you in some not so nice experiments."

"What experiments? He wouldn't do that. He's mean, but he's not a bad guy." She'd known Winter her whole life. He yelled a lot, but he would never hurt her. He was Nick's friend.

"Once we get off the grid, you can call Fury and he'll tell you," Natasha explained.

"Off what?" Emmi saw her roll her eyes.

"Just stop asking me questions for awhile, alright? This isn't the ideal situation for me either." Emmi was quiet for approximately two minutes.

"You're bleeding. Does it hurt?" Natasha reached up and brushed her lip with her fingers.

"I'm fine. Just stop talking, I'm trying to think."

"About what?"

"Nothing because you keep talking." Emmi cuddled Gabe to her chest and looked out the window. Five minutes later, the silence ended again.

"Are you done thinking yet?"

"Not really."

"Well, I have to go to the bathroom."


End file.
